​GOD BLESS AMERICA

​Since the United States contains the world’s largest population of Jesus followers, Trinity Broadcasting Network is considered a powerful force in the promise of a Christian nation.

The faith channel’s North Texas facility is an architectural replica of the White House with two rooms patterned after the Oval Office and a marble-floored museum highlighting associations of church and state. Many of the museums’ political artifacts spotlight TBN founder Paul Crouch and his colorful wife, Jan.

When TBN first aired 40 years ago, the Crouches cultivated a folksy image as a devoted Pentecostal couple presenting religion wrapped in entertainment. They were once considered honorable stewards of the Lord’s money. But the Crouches have since parlayed their viewers’ “expressions of faith” into a life of luxury — explaining that their personal wealth proves that they enjoy God’s favor.

For broadcast titans, the Crouches are painfully press-shy. They refuse to “cast pearls before swine” and never grant secular press the opportunity to blaspheme Christ’s cause. Paul castigates the media’s revelations of TBN scandals as “Satan’s plot” to discourage viewers from following Christ.

One such revelation involved former TBN employee Enoch Lonnie Ford, who threatened to disclose an alleged 1996 sexual encounter with Paul.

Despite TBN’s efforts, Ford’s charges surfaced in an unrelated 1998 lawsuit involving a bodyguard for TBN personality Benny Hinn who testified that Hinn told associates about a carnal relationship between Paul Crouch and his male assistant.

With her long false lashes and architectonic pink wigs, Jan’s flashy flair resembles that of televangelist Tammy Bakker, who, in 1973, moved from Michigan and lived with the Crouches to help launch TBN.

TBN’s popular “Praise the Lord” program is a nightly, two-hour mix of talk, prayer and music. The Crouches and guest hosts hold forth on a purple-and-gold set decorated by Jan, replete with stained-glass windows, chandeliers, “French” antiques and a gold piano.

The show is frequently taped in North Texas. “Praise the Lord” attendees note that instead of preaching about the fires of hell, the Crouches use TBN to lift up God rather than run down groups of people. Those who do not neatly fit male or female categories can remind congregations to practice what the Bible proclaims — that the soul transcends gender.

In Galatians 3:28, Paul the Apostle writes, “There is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

A scholarly interpretation of Genesis suggests that Adam was an androgynous creature whose rib was transformed into a female so Adam could truly be “one flesh.”

Dolly Parton’s “Unlikely Angel” film is a TBN-programming favorite, personally approved by Jan Crouch. For the movie “Transamerica,” Dolly Parton wrote an Oscar-worthy song that likened gender to Christianity — qualities that welcome renewal, change and being “born again.”